The Cake
by Laura Schiller
Summary: With CC at The Place, Niles feels lonely and guilty enough to draw her portrait in icing. Fran catches him at it and understands more than he's willing to admit. N/CC, N&F friendship.


The Cake

By Laura Schiller

Based on: The Nanny

Copyright: Fran Drescher

Niles knew Fran Fine quite well by now – she was his employer's lover after all, as well as his own best friend for five-and-a-half years running. She was the sweet, bubbly little sister he'd always wanted, the one he came to for gossip, laughter and sympathy. In retrospect, he thought, it shouldn't have surprised him how well she knew him in return.

It was the cake, of all things, that tipped her off. One look at Niles' painstakingly iced portrait of CC Babcock on a slab of cake, and Miss Fine's black eyes melted. She looked from Niles to the cake and back again, put a warm hand on his shoulder, and sniffed back a sob.

"Oh, Niles … you … you made her so _pretty! _It's not fair of you to put that masterpiece on a cake, I could never – ooh, vanilla – I could never put a knife to it!"

Niles could have smashed the cake in his embarrassment. He should have known. This craving to see Miss Babcock's face again, to create something beautiful in her honor after all the ugly things he'd done, had obviously eroded his common sense. The very last thing he needed right now was pity; especially Miss Fine's pity, as extreme as all her feelings were.

"Well, ma'am," he improvised, in a last-ditch attempt to save face, "You wouldn't want me to draw her real face, would you? Who'd eat _that_?"

He pretended to shudder. Miss Fine was not fooled.

"You even got her lipstick right," she continued, smiling sweetly. "That's the exact same color she used to – she wears every day."

Her verb tenses did not escape Niles. At the sanatorium, Miss Babcock was in no condition to apply lipstick for herself, and none of them knew if she would ever achieve such a condition again.

"And here I thought it was the blood of her victims," he sneered.

Miss Fine threw up her hands and dropped into the nearest kitchen chair. "_Genug_ already, Niles! Admit it – you miss her. Oh, Niles, I'm so sorry … Miss Babcock was a witch all right, but she was _our_ witch, and I had no idea you like her, and now she's lost her mind and you might never see her again and it's all … my … fault!"

This time she really did cry – loud, wet, untidy tears that were none the less heartfelt for all that. Niles hurried to bring her a slice of the cake, hand her a kleenex and put his arm around her terryclothed shoulders.

"Shh … there, there, Miss Fine … it's all right. Now, what in heaven's name do you mean by saying it's _your_ fault? What could _you_ possibly have done?"

"What didn't I do, Niles?" said Miss Fine ruefully. "First I stole the man she loves, then I beat her at the only thing she had left: her career! When I gave Irwin that makeover for Max's rap musical, Miss Babcock must've felt like … just like me, when Danny dumped me for Heather Biblow_. I'm_ her Heather Biblow! With better fashion sense, I hope - and the cake's delish, by the way. Oh, oh, how could this happen? All I wanted was for Maxwell to be proud of me … "

Niles' guilt, which had been festering inside him ever since the moment CC had turned to him with childlike eyes and called him "Grandmama", finally forced him to speak.

"You mustn't blame yourself, ma'am. If anyone is to blame for Miss Babcock's breakdown … it's me."

"Oh no, I'm sure it's not your fault," said Miss Fine, wiping her tears. "Just 'cause you pulled a few pranks on her … okay, a lot of pranks … embarrassed her every day in front of Max, who she's been crushing on since the disco age … called her fat and ugly and unfeminine every chance you got … made friends with her just to irritate me and then dumped her like a hot potato when you and me made up … kissed her and then pretended it never happened … oy … " Her eyes widened as she heard the growing list of evidence from her own mouth.

"Y'know, Niles, I think you may be right."

Niles bowed his head and did not contradict her. She didn't even know the worst of it: the singing telegram (_"Fran and Maxwell are engaged,/Looks like you're a loser!"_); impersonating Mr. Sheffield (_"Cluck like a chicken, it turns me on"_) or that absurd misunderstanding about his wallet, when Miss Babcock might actually have been willing to make love to him.

"_My mental health is just a sick game to you, isn't it?"_ she had asked him once, after a well planned prank and a completely unplanned kiss. He had replied with an unrepentant shrug – "_Rack 'em up, let's play again_" – never dreaming of taking her accusation to heart, until today, when it rang in his ear like a judge's sentence.

"I went too far," he said, with a sigh of regret from the bottom of his heart. "As you may have noticed, Miss Fine, my relationship with Miss Babcock has always been … complicated."

"No kidding?"

He shrugged. "On the one hand, we had opposite goals – she wanted Mr. Sheffield for herself, while I supported his pursuit of you. And quite frankly, that woman has an ego the size of Mount Everest. She _needs_ taking down a peg or two."

"But not this far down, Niles!" Miss Fine winced at the idea of the sanatorium, which neither of them had visited yet.

"Not this far down," Niles agreed. "On the other hand … you can't imagine how exciting it was, to match wits with a woman as clever as Miss Babcock. It became a game between us. Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to convince her Mr. Sheffield had a fourth child?"

"You what?"

The memory made him smile. "Yes, and she saw right through me, but she never let on, and even bribed a little boy to play Sydney Sheffield. The fright she gave me that night … oh, Miss Fine, it was brilliant_._"

Miss Fine looked deeply skeptical, but had the sense not to say a word.

"I never understood how such a clever, talented, and yes, beautiful woman as Miss CC Babcock could make such a fool of herself over – and I say this with the greatest possible respect – my vain, spoiled, emotionally repressed excuse for a boss."

"Yeah, I know what you – hey! Don't talk about my fiançé like that!"

Niles dodged a halfhearted swipe at the back of his head by standing up to fetch a second slice of cake. Talking it out was proving more helpful than he'd expected. No wonder Miss Fine always felt better after a long chat with her mother or Val.

"I'm such a _shmegeggy,_" said Miss Fine, shaking her curly head and gesturing widely, like a teacher with a chalkboard. "How could I not notice? It's so obvious now … all this time, you've been working your _tuches_ off to get Miss Babcock's attention off of Max and onto you. You love her, but you're too proud to risk her saying no, so you pretend to hate her instead. And the more she doesn't notice, the more you feel like you really do hate her. All this time for … how long you known her?"

"Eighteen years."

"Oyyy … " Miss Fine covered her face with both hands, as if every one of those eighteen years had just landed on her own shoulders. "And I thought _five_ years was tough."

Niles sensed an epiphany rushing toward him, with all the force of a subway train speeding through a tunnel. He cut a third slice of cake – for himself. He would need the calories.

/

That night, he sat up until midnight revising his get-well card.

_Dear Miss Babcock – I hope your recovery is faster than your metabolism._

_Keep a stiff upper lip, Babs, and don't forget to shave it._

_Dear Miss Babcock – I drew your portrait in cake frosting today. A rum cake, fittingly enough. It's the only form in which Mr. Sheffield's lips will ever touch yours. Aren't you pleased?_

_Dear Chastity – As you grieved for me last January, I grieve for you today. My life is empty without your laughter and the fragrance of your hair. I need you … please come back._

_Dear CC – I apologize for every unkind thing I've ever done and every offensive word I've ever spoken. Even the true ones. Most especially the true ones._

_Forgive me, my love._

_Dear Miss Babcock – You should recognize the picture on this card. It's van Gogh's Starry Night, one of your favorites, I believe. I'm not surprised you admire a man mad enough to cut off his own ear … 'birds of a feather' is the proverbial saying._

He lost count of how many lines he'd scribbled in his notebook (not wanting to make a crossed-out mess of the beautiful card). His final draft was the following:

_Dear Miss Babcock,_

_Mr. Sheffield, Miss Fine, the children and I send our best wishes for your recovery. Miss Fine adds her sincere apologies for interfering in a business decision which was rightfully yours, and Mr. Sheffield wishes me to say that he feels quite lost without you (__professionally__ speaking, of course). _

_I baked a rum cake with vanilla frosting today, which I happen to know is your favorite. I challenge you to come back before it's all eaten. And when you do come back, I promise to wash every coffee cup and keep every floor in navigable condition. _

_Yours truly,_

_Niles A. Brightmore_

/

Some time later, a more or less self-aware CC Babcock sat up in bed, read the card which a nurse had opened for her, smiled and touched the signature. It was her only card, and her past self would have been horrified to discover all her high-class peers ignoring her; but the present CC asked for nothing more.

"Rum cake, huh?" she murmured, chuckling to herself. "Oh, just you wait, Butler Boy. I'm coming home!"


End file.
